Michael Watts (18 October 1938 – 5 March 2018) was a British journalist and broadcaster best known for his "Inspector Watts" column in the Sunday Express[1] and other publications, which ran for over 35 years.
Watts, born in Nottinghamshire and educated at Nottingham High School, began in journalism at age 16 as a reporter on the Nottingham Evening News.[2] After four years there, he became London editor of The Viewer television magazine[3] for a year, before joining the Sunday Express[4] in 1960. There, he was variously gossip column editor, deputy news editor, and deputy editor in Manchester, and started the paper's Town Talk diary.
In 1969 he began The World of Michael Watts, a consumer column laced with social comment and humour. This concluded with the Great Corny Joke Contest, offering a cash prize of a "Crisp Oncer" - at £1 "the meanest prize in Fleet Street",[5] and one which became relatively meaner as the years passed. In the 1980s, as the pound coin was replacing the pound note, Watts bought several hundreds of the latter from a bank so that the Crisp Oncer prize could continue. In carrying out investigations and taking up readers' battles with companies and bureaucracy, Michael Watts became known as "Inspector Watts" - and the column continued for 22 years, until he left the Sunday Express.
However, he started the column again in the relaunched London Evening News[6] and, the following year, in Saga magazine.[7] Then in 1989 the Sunday Express asked Watts to bring it back to them, which until 1991 he did.
His column and broadcasts were often commented upon by other publications,[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] and in addition to continuing in Saga, the column also ran for five years in the Westminster Review,[18] and from 2002 to 2005 in Active Life magazine[19] (still handing out Crisp Oncers).
Watts freelanced in later life. He died on 5 March 2018.[20]
Watts's radio work for BBC Radio 4 included twice-weekly consumer spots on Up To The Hour, and presenting The Weekly World and News Stand.[21] Plus much for LBC.
Author of I Say! I Say! Great Britain’s Best Corny Jokes and the Debatable Wit and Wisdom of Michael Watts, published by Sidgwick & Jackson, 1971 (ISBN0 283 978066).
